Another weekend art fair done. Time to shift gears…
my Lillstreet Summer Camp tour-of-duty begins in about nine hours!
Gotta get some sleep so I’m ready to take on the kids!!!

It’s official… Summer Camp starts on Monday at Lillstreet Art Center.
Another fun summer of playing with kids & art supplies… creating… laughing…
and maybe even teaching them a few things along the way!

Summer Camps at Lillstreet are for the full week. Kids have a choice of taking the
morning session from 9:00am-1:00pm, the afternoon session from 1:00pm-3:30pm,
or putting both together for a full day of fun. There is even an “after camp” option for
those kids who need to stay later until Mom or Dad can get off work to pick them up.

These are the weeks when I’ll be teaching camps…
Besides the first week, all of my camp are “full-day” camps from 9:00am-3:30pm.
My camps are also designed for kids who are 8-12 years old.
There are plenty of other camps for kids of all ages.

Week B – June 11-15 – Wheelthrowing AM, Clay & Multimedia PM
Wheelthrowing basics from start to finish. We’ll wedge, center & throw on Monday
and work our way to glazing on Friday! Clay & Multimedia is a clay handbuilding project
on Monday and other random art projects throughout the week… quite possibly
with tie-dye on Thursday!

Week D – June 25-29 – Garden Camp
It’s a full week camp art projects for the garden. Planters, flower boxes, lawn ornaments
and maybe even a totem pole along the way?!

Week E – July 9-13 – Fire, Forge & Feast
We start the week on the “dirty side of the building” making clay plates, bowls, cups and
handles on Monday & Tuesday. Then we move over to the “clean side” on Wednesday &
Thursday to make metal knives, forks & spoons. Friday we put it all together and have a
great potluck lunch on their finished dinnerware sets! These week I co-teach with
Pam Robinson who is the one in charge of the Metals Dept. at Lillstreet –
and an incredible metalsmith in her own right!

Week F should have been Chess Camp, but I got “pulled away” for a two-week “glitter gig”
in Dover, Delaware. So the camp is still running, but I won’t be the teacher this summer.
Instead, my friend Dave Trost will be taking the helm. His whimsical & satirical approach
to sculpture will really be fun for the kids! Still… no Chess fun for me this summer. Bummer.

Week H – July 30 – August 3 – Wild Things!
It’s a wild week filled with animals every step of the way. All of our projects are
animal themed. Including a Field Trip to Lincoln Park Zoo on Tuesday.

Week I – August 6-10 – Fire, Forge & Feast
So much fun the first time… so we’re offering it twice this Summer!

Week J – August 13-17 – Masters Camp
A little bit of Art History, thrown in with a lot of fun art projects! We go to the Art Institute
on Tuesday for inspiration – and all art projects this week are done “in the style of” a famous
master artist. The week culminates with a “gallery show” of the kids works!

Check out the Lillstreet website for a full listing of Summer Camps.
There’s a lot of Clay & Multimedia Camps, as well as metalsmithing, painting, etc… and
plenty of specialty camps like Movie Making, Cartooning, Sewing, Fashion Design & more!
It’s always a fun summer at Lillstreet Art Center.

Yes, it’s true.
It is still the first week of January and I’ve already submitted my Summer Camp
Schedule to the folks at Lillstreet Art Center. It’s going to be another great summer
of making art with the kids… but I REALLY can’t believe that we had to make our
schedules so early in the year. I had to sketch out my entire summer schedule,
making a lot of assumptions along the way, to incorporate art fairs, kiln firings,
bike rides, vacations, family obligations and everything else! So I’ve now “planned”
my entire summer around art fairs I haven’t even applied to
and bike ride dates that aren’t even published yet!

So the kids put in the work… the creativity… the fun…
They worked right up until the Friday end of camp. Painting underglaze colors.
So when the kids were gone, and camp was over, we sprayed all of their chess pieces
with a low-fire clear glaze. And then fired them to cone 06. All of the pieces just came
out of the kiln… all mixed up! So Brian and I worked today to separate them back
into their thematic sets… and pack them up for the kids top come back to pick them up!
And then… let the games begin!!! Chess games that is…

Today was my last day of Summer Camp.
Bittersweet.

But please don’t tell me that Summer is already over?!

So as to top off today’s final day of camp, one of my “favorite campers” from this week
brought in a special Thank You note she had made for me. It was very sincere,
very creative and so great to be thanked! So there’s a thoughtful note on the front
and well-drawn still life on the back. Thank You Maya!

Today was the final day of “Gallery Artists: Learning From The Masters.”
And as my kids worked frantically to complete their paintings, we started to
put together our “gallery exhibit” and “opening reception.” The kids were quite
excited and our “show” and it all came together nicely. So while some of them were
putting their handmade clay frames on their paintings… others were still painting
“in the style” of Georges Seurat. Using Q-Tips for the dots instead of paint brushes!

As 3:00pm was quickly closing in on us, the kids were putting their finishing touches up,
making signage for their exhibit and setting up their refreshment station. And then soon
enough, the kids had a roomful of guests admiring their hard work & masterpieces!
Including “in the style of” paintings ala Georges Seurat, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollack
and Andy Warhol… just to name a few!

My little artists were all very excited by the turnout. We had a lot of kids from other
Lillstreet camps stop by, as well as some of the adult students. But I think they were most
proud when their family & friends came to view their works. They welcomed their guests
and showed them around the instant “gallery.” Everyone was so excited & pleased
with their masterpieces!

And hopefully, they all learned a little something along the way…
Whether about themselves, a new technique or a famous artist in history!

Today.
The kids continued to work “in the style of” some more famous artists!
Including Georgia O’Keefe, Piet Mondrian, Georges Seurat… and practically
every kid’s favorite… Jackson Pollack. They even worked on memorizing some more
famous artists like Marc Chagall, Andy Warhol, M.C. Escher, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella,
Norman Rockwell, Peter Max, Wasily Kandinsky and even Theodor Seuss Geisel…
yep, Dr. Seuss!!!

Tomorrow.
We will be celebrating the end of their “Gallery Artists” week of summer camp
with a “gallery-style” show & reception to highlight their new masterpieces.
Today they decided to call their show “ARTAPALOOZA” and made show posters!
If you are available tomorrow afternoon, we would LOVE to have you stop by
Lillstreet at 3:00pm to share in the festivities on the third floor in Painting Room C.

Back at summer camp, the kids are focusing on some of the master artists they saw
during their field trip to the Art Institute on Tuesday. I created a beautiful still life
for the kids to work from. We first had them draw the still life in their own style.

Then, we had a great discussion about some famous artists. There were ten new names that
we discussed and the kids started memorizing some good art history. All the while thinking
it was just fun… and not an art history class! We covered classic masters like Pablo Picasso,
Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Salvador Dali, Paul Gauguin… as well as
more contemporaries like Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keefe, Piet Mondrian & Roy Lichtenstein.

After sharing some art history & anecdotes, the kids switched to their first painting
“in the style of” Georgia O’Keefe. So we discussed some of the identifiable characteristics
of an O’Keefe painting… and then they started off sketching & painting their own version.

More artists… and more painting tomorrow…

So it’s another week of Summer Camp (my last for this summer)…
and this time it’s a week all based on famous artists & famous paintings!
Throughout the week, the kids will all be making their art “in the style of”
famous artists. It’s going to be a crash course in art history… they’re going to learn
a lot this week, and they’ll never see it coming!!!

Today we all took a field trip to the Art Institute downtown… after too many Mr. Pibbs!!!
So my busload went downtown, spent some time in Millennium Park, visited The Bean,
and ate lunch in the park. The into the museum to expose the kids to a LOT of art!!!
Many of them were surprised when they finally realized that everything in the museum
was “real” and not a fake… as well as how old many of the pieces are!